


In My Feelings

by angryjane



Category: Chilling Adventures of Sabrina (TV 2018)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, Angst, Angst and Feels, Angst and Romance, Angst with a Happy Ending, Caring Harvey, F/M, Harvey Kinkle Knows Sabrina Spellman is a Witch, Light Angst, M/M, Multi, Mutual Pining, Not Actually Unrequited Love, Not Beta Read, Not Canon Compliant, Oblivious Harvey Kinkle, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, POV Harvey, POV Sabrina Spellman, Parent Zelda Spellman, Pining, Polyamory, Post-Season/Series 02, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Protective Harvey, Sassy Sabrina Spellman, Sexual Confusion, Sexual Tension, Spoilers for Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, Spoilers for Chilling Adventures of Sabrina (TV 2018) Season 2, The Academy of Unseen Arts (Chilling Adventures of Sabrina), Unresolved Sexual Tension, Wet Dream
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-07
Updated: 2020-04-07
Packaged: 2021-03-02 05:14:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 9,639
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23529760
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/angryjane/pseuds/angryjane
Summary: Post Season 2Fresh out of hell, Nicholas Scratch isn't the same as he used to be. Amidst the confusion of a shattered coven, the Dark Lord's wrath, and teenage romance, he must find himself again without losing the people he loves.UNFINISHED. I started this before season three came out and then abandoned it. If there's adequate positive response I'm open to continuing it tho :)
Relationships: Harvey Kinkle & Nicholas Scratch, Harvey Kinkle & Sabrina Spellman, Harvey Kinkle/Nicholas Scratch, Harvey Kinkle/Nicholas Scratch/Sabrina Spellman, Harvey Kinkle/Sabrina Spellman, Nicholas Scratch & Sabrina Spellman, Nicholas Scratch/Sabrina Spellman
Comments: 3
Kudos: 32
Collections: hekiv's CAOS collection





	1. Where Do We Go?

**Author's Note:**

> again, this isn't finished! i was planning to write it completely out before posting, but then life happened and time went on and season three came out and here we are. i'm totally down to reopen it if y'all really like it tho!! so pls give it a read!

_ Then my limbs all froze and my eyes won't close _

_ And I can't say no, I can't say no _

_ Careful _

In the dark, illuminated from behind, he kneels before her.

“Nicholas Scratch, do you know why I brought you here?”

“I am not Nicholas Scratch, my dear Lilith. Do not pretend,” Said the thing inhabiting the body of poor, poor Nick. “You imprison me here, Lilith, after all I’ve done for you? Shameful, disgusting woman.”

Lilith scoffed, but didn’t deign a reply, continuing instead, “You, Dark Lord,” The words taste vile on her lips and tongue now, not the sweet melody they once were, “Are moving.”

The Dark Lord tilted Nick’s head. 

“I have found a new suitable prison. You’re going to be relinquishing poor Nicholas Scratch.”

“And if I say no?”

“It’s not a choice of yours.”

“Nicholas Scratch defied me-”

“And rightfully so, asshole.” At the fire in her voice, Lucifer paused, regarding her through Nick's eyes. She straightened her gown. “You will go willingly.”

“Lilith, dearest, I will  _ destroy _ you for this-”

Lilith regarded him steadily. “You won’t have the chance.”

\-----

Waking up feels like breathing. Lungs expand, fingers clench, eyes water, blood flows. 

Nick hadn’t felt so awake in a long time. 

First from his parched lips: “Sabrina…” And next: “Are the mortals alright? Harvey?”

“The mortal boy?” Lilith, beautiful, dead Lilith, asks beside him, a cool, bony (or, perhaps, just  _ bone _ ) hand comforting on his knee, watching as he wakes. 

Nick nods. 

Lilith says nothing, only raises a brow.

“Wardwell- Lilith, that is,” He’s desperate, forgetful. His time away weighs heavy on his chest as he sits up from the stone floor, “Are they alright? Sabrina? Harvey? Their mortal friends?”

“They are fine.” She says cooly, “But you, Nicholas Scratch, are not.” He hand withdraws from his skin. “What you need now, I cannot give to you here. Go. Leave this place, and never come back.” Her lip curls menacingly, “At least, not until your time.”

“Go how? Where is the Dark Lord?”

A shadow crosses her face. 

“Where he belongs-- In Judas.”

\-----

They walk in silence, over stone and flame. It is warm, burning,  _ sweltering _ , unbearably so, and sweat oozes from Nick’s human flesh. Lilith seems unperturbed, but then again: she has no human flesh left to burn. Nick, lover that he is--so inclined to musing he is-- thinks she is beautiful here, in a morbid, twisted way: she is what is left behind, he supposes. Her eyes are bone, her cheeks hallowed stone; she walks and talks with the precision and grace of a thousand thousand forgotten dead, limbs floating rather than moving through the plane. It’s clear she’s in her element: fire and death. Mary Wardwell was always elegant, but Lilith wore her like a suit, and now she roams naked and free through her domains. 

“We’re almost here,” She is saying now, breaking a silence growing between them, broken before only by the crunch of rock, the crackling of the flames that lick their feet, and the echoing screams of the tormented. 

Nick does not belong here. 

They stop in front of a gate: it is huge, and imposing, and crude. Runes and symbols dot its surface, glowing red as their master approaches; Lilith raises both hands.

“Et ab intus, oro, doma et mater quam tua, illa tu aperit nam me, et allocas hic animus, et hoc modo animam, libera ambulat.” Nick knows the words, in his mind, from countless hours in the library. Ancient words, spoken before only enough times he could fit them in one hand: _ “And from within, I plead, as your master and mother, that you open for me, and let this soul, and only this soul, walk free.” _

He blinks, and the doors crack open, revealing the mines without. They are exactly as he left them: stony and sleepy and dead in all the ways Hell is not.

Everything is red as Nick looks at her. “Thank you.” He says earnestly, taking a step towards the Gates of Hell. He stops, turning back over one shoulder, and in a voice loud, ringing, both his own and not, to be heard over the screams which only grow louder and more desperate now, with the gates opened, “Hail Lilith.”

The gates close. 

Lilith smiles. 

\-----

As everything that Hell was not, the mines are exactly as Nick remembers them: cold, wet and quiet. No crackling flames, no tumbling stone, no shouts of agony and devotion. Just the echo of Nick’s tired footsteps on worn earth. His vision spins. 

He steps over the ruins of a prophecy unfulfilled.

Lilith had told him to go to the Spellman house: the Coven lay in tatters and Zelda was his new priest. She led well, Lilith had noted with amusement.

Hilda Spellman, as according to Madam Satan, was the only witch in Greendale able to stabilize his body: he could feel his soul knocking restlessly about its cage even as he floated down the dark passage of earth. 

He reached the boarded exit to shaft thirteen.

Were he himself, he’d’ve magicked it open, or even smashed it with a stone; he was not himself right now.

So instead, he knocked. 


	2. No Matter Which Way You Stay

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> walking with a ghost- teagan and sara

_ I was walking with a ghost, _

_ And I said please, please don't insist _

_ I was walking with a ghost, _

_ And I said please, please don't insist. _

In the past month, having successfully stopped the apocalypse, Harvey had spent more time in the mines. In light of recent events, they no longer scared him.

And besides, it gave him an odd sense of peace. He feels, there in the rock, that Sabrina is with him, and her boy, and they're fighting off the apocalypse together. Roz is there, he supposed, and Theo. He should feel bad that he thinks of Sabrina and the boy before he thinks of his own girlfriend.

In the quiet there, he could imagine for a moment that Tommy floats along beside him, smiling as Harvey's fingers brush over the spots they used to play as kids, before that horrible thing in the mines. Sabrina says it's a demon, and that about fits what Harvey remembers of it; he doesn't push it.

For Sabrina's part, she's been keeping her distance still, as he requested, but he feels her absence like an ache. Sometimes,when his mind wanders too far below the surface of the earth, to the mines, the crust, and Hell below, where a boy Harvey's grown too fond of holds the Devil in, his fingers begin to pick out her face in charcoal or lead, pale hair and pale skin and dark eyes watching, always watching. 

He wonders about her boy, too. Nick. Harvey reckons he's got to be lonely, down there. 

And so he follows his father down into the mines today, with the excuse he left something in one of the shafts earlier that week. His dad grunts, brows drawn and scowling, but makes no fuss; the car ride is silent. His knee bounces in anticipation as it always does when he comes near the mines now. 

In the elevator, Harvey swears there's something building in his chest, clawing itself out. A lump forms in his throat, and for a moment he chokes on it in the stale, tense air, gagging it back as his father pretends not to hear. 

And then the lift crashes to a creaking, shaking halt on the mine floor, and the feeling eased: whatever it was that was crawling from his lungs settled back into its cage and he followed his father into the mines. 

The shaft where Tommy's accident happened has been closed for weeks now, collapsed as it is, and Harvey finds himself holding his breath as they pass, fingers curling into his flashlight until his knuckles go white. His father seems undisturbed, coughing on the dust of the mines.

And then Harvey can sneak off, glancing over his shoulder at where is father is discussing something heatedly with one of the managers, heading towards shaft 13. He's been splitting his time between this one, where Sabrina's new boyfriend lay trapped, and Tommy's. His father wants to open it back up, clean up the debris and the bodies. Tommy's body isn't there. 

Shaft 13 is exactly how he left it. He'd put the new boards up himself, hidden the evidence of the end of the world behind flimsy dead matter, held by refined stone. There's a stone here, flattened on top from years and years of miners resting tired bodies upon it, and Harvey sits there now, headlamp shining down into his blank page as he digs a pencil out of an inside pocket. There's a shifting of rock somewhere, echoing in his mind. A dragging sound, really, Harvey muses as he puts the lead down, like the scraping of old stone on old stone.

In his mind's eye, he sees them: beautiful together. Sabrina, all wispy lines and lightness, eyes knowing and serene, one frail arm wrapped around a strong, dark figure. Nick is her juxtaposition, something hidden in his eyes as he smirked beside her. 

A quiet moment. The only sound is the scratching of the pencil and far-off, echoing footsteps from somewhere behind him. His father or the older manager, Harvey supposed. The pair are almost finished: all that's left is all the places they touch. He's drawn them too far apart, as if waiting for a third figure between, a greyscale man to even out the transition between the two opposites. He goes to erase, to pull them together, but the pencil falls out of his hands: a knock sounds on the wood and he jumps.

There is no one around Harvey. He holds his breath.

The knock sounds again.

The breath comes out as a shout, and he scrambles away from the doorway. His fingers scratch at the stone ground for something, anything, to use as a weapon, but he comes up short. There's a shifting from behind the wood, and then: "Farm Boy?"

Harvey knows that voice. It's haunted his nightmares and daydreams for the past few months. He's heard it whispering to Sabrina, telling him to stay back, casting deadly spells, laughing at him. 

"N-Nick?" 

Nick laughs, a breathy, pained thing. "Hey, Harry."

"Harvey." He corrects automatically, a tinge of annoyance and fondness pulling at him. Hell didn't make him any less of a dick. "How- how did you..?" He paused. "Wait, is that you, or… the thing in you?" 

Nick snorts.

"Not like that, asshole. I mean, are you Nick or are you the Devil? Not that you weren't a demon before, but you know what I mean." 

"It's me. Actually me, Farm Boy." 

No one else calls Harvey Farm Boy, and no one else messes his name up like that, at least not on purpose. And he sure  _ sounds _ like Nick, dickish and everything, but… "Tell me something only Nicholas Scratch would know."

"Oh, um… I once dated all three Weird Sisters at once."

"You  _ what? _ No, nevermind. I don't want to know. That's not good enough. Anyone who was in your witching world could see that. Something else. Something better."

"You shot the zombie of your brother with a rifle." 

Harvey gulped, hands clenching on his sketchbook. The portrait was ruined.

"That's exactly something the Devil would know. Keep trying." He was trying his best to think like Sabrina, but  _ god _ , did he just want it to be Nick, the real Nick.

"Satan below, what do you want from me, Harvey? When I was seven, I broke my pinkie trying to cast a love spell on a mortal boy. When I was thirteen I read a book about the Spellman family and decided I was going to marry Sabrina. Two years ago I ate a living frog on a dare… There's a poster in your bedroom of Stan Lee dressed as the Joker! Is that good enough?"

Harvey considered. Satan couldn't know all those things, not really. "Fine. Hold on while I find something to break the wood with."

"Oh thank Satan. I'm starving. And dying. Did I mention I need to see Hilda Spellman?"

"You didn't. Step back, I'm going to smash it in."

"Yessir!" 

Three hits, and the wood splintered and caved, and then Nick was shoving his way through. He looked like death, face hollowed and eyes gaunt, his limbs too thin and hair matted. But he managed a smirk at Harvey, self-assured, before collapsing forward into Harvey's chest. 

"Thanks, Farm Boy."

And then his eyes slipped shut, and his breath slowed, and Harvey didn't know what to do.

  
  



	3. Wish That I Could Say That You're Dead To Me

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> all i do is cry- kim petras

_ All I do is cry about you _

_ I don't wanna die without you _

_ Thought that you were the exception _

_ Took a fatal blow to my heart _

Try as she might, Sabrina could not for the life of her focus on  _ The Hidden History of Witches and Warlocks in the Eighteenth Century _ . Her thoughts kept drifting downstairs to where Hilda was crying over Ambrose's letter, further downwards, to where Aunt Zelda was cleaning the embalming table and rehearsing her new doctrine for the sermon she was to give tomorrow to the meager few left. And then downward further, to the mines, where Harvey was sure to be wandering at this hour (Sabrina had been keeping an eye on him in silence), and further down still, to Lilith ruling her domains of the dead, to Nick gasping and screaming in pain to hold Him in. Or perhaps Nick was gone altogether, am empty cage for the Beast. 

They'd sealed the shaft again. It hasn't been touched since. Sabrina couldn't help but feel like it was a final goodbye. She supposed it made sense that Harvey had been the one to do it; they never  _ had  _ gotten on so well. Her lips hint at a smile as she remembers their bickering, the whole "Farm Boy" debacle, the way Harvey would stick his tongue out at Nick in defeat. 

She missed Harvey too. She saw him often enough, as the Fright Club, as they'd taken to calling themselves, met once or twice a week at Dr. Cerberus's shop. Even breaking into the library at the Academy after dark, bringing her mortal friends into witch territory, she couldn't find anything to bring Nick back. ("This is so fucking  _ creepy _ Sabrina!" "That statue is watching me… Look! Its eyes just moved! I swear!" "I like the color scheme, at least…") 

It seemed that the Fright Club was at an impasse. Their last meeting had ended early.

A hand played against the corner of her page as she watched the clock above the mirror. She felt like it was mocking her, hanging silently over the pictures of Nick and Harvey and all her friends. 

Theo had showed up at her door last night, Roz in tow and a plate of cookies at hand, and the three of them sat in silence in front of the television, the sound off on a horror film. They didn't bother to spend hours gushing over the symbolism and effects this time, the other two had left without a word. Theo kissed her cheek and smiled but said nothing. 

She missed Nick. His stupid smirk, the way he used to touch her elbow lightly after he teased her particularly rudely to assure her he was joking. How he threw himself into his work, how he helped her when she asked, but never made to do things for her if she didn't want him to. How he swept the door open wherever she went, making her giggle and swat at him. The way his fingers would brush back her hair and trail down her jaw to her neck, nails dragging prickling lines across her skin, the way he gripped her hips when they kissed, the way his eyes burned into her, following her movements with a soft hunger. How he protected her without making her feel weak, how he let her curl into his chest in silence at the crack of dawn, arms rubbing against her softly, smoothly. How he was so warm, so gentle, so strong and rough and crass. How he would sometimes push her up against the wall between classes, just out of sight, whispering the most daring things in her ear, hot breath ghosting her throat, how he sighed when she touched him, how he bit her lips teasingly at night, how his hands moved against her almost reverently, worshipping and drawn.

She could imagine him here with her, Nick’s hands on her hips, his lips at the base of her neck, slow, insistent. It felt real, it felt ritualistic, it felt disgustingly good. She smoothed her hands down her shirt slowly, eyes closed. The book fell to the side, bouncing quietly on the mattress at her hip. 

She imagined it’d be different with Harvey. Nick would take control, could never be controlled, but Harvey had never been like that. Always softer, sweeter, so, so gentle. They’d made out quite a few times when they were dating, and he’d always been so slow with her, caring and never too rough (even when she was feeling like  _ rough _ was what she needed). Not that she didn’t love every second of the adoration and admiration with which Harvey touched her, kissed her, watched her. 

It’d be  _ interesting _ , to say the least, to see them together, in that context. Would they fight, like they usually did? Over her? She felt bad at how the thought excited her, especially because she wasn’t even dating either of them anymore. Kind of. Does going to the underworld to hold in the devil count as breaking up? Long distance, perhaps? 

But,  _ oh _ , could she imagine herself between them, like she found herself between so many things, the mortal and the witch. Harvey’s arms around her neck, his hand toying through her hair oh so slow, kissing her sweetly, softly, while Nick’s nails dragged at her chest, between her ribs, across her navel. And down, down, down-

There was a bang from downstairs, and a shout. Harvey’s voice. 

Sabrina sat up, throwing the duvet away just to stumble out of bed and down the hall. 

“Harvey?”

“‘Brina! Come quick, please, please-”

Bounding down the ornate stairs, Sabrina reached the landing, facing down the foyer, where Harvey stood, something--heavy, dark-- draped across his body. “‘Brina, help. I didn’t know what to do so I just came here-”

Sabrina blinked, descending the last set of stairs in a daze, eyes glued to the figure of her limp boyfriend. Harvey was crying. 

“Aunties!”

  
  



	4. You See Me As Your Lifeline

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the king- conan gray

_ Don't you got a girl that can make you feel nice? _

_ It's a dead sign _

_ You like me, oh, obviously _

_ So why you trying to leave when you know that I'm the king? (You'll see) _

_ 'Cause I'm supreme (Choose me) _

  
  


Nick didn't remember getting here, all he remembers is Harvey's arms warm around his chest, being carried like a damsel in distress across the woods. He must have lost consciousness somewhere in the trees, because he didn't remember the door banging open, the shouts, the panic. He was here now, with the Spellmans, just as Lilith had told him to be. 

His skin feels too loose, like it's been emptied, the glass only half full. There's a twitching in his fingers and toes, a rattling in his lungs and nestled within his ribs. In the silence and solace of the embalming room, on the metal table, he can feel the breath leaving his nose, brushing his lips his chin; he can hear the stomping of panicked footsteps somewhere above him on old wood flooring and worn rug. He becomes aware, slowly, ever so slowly, that there's another in the room with him.

Creaking, slicing, his eyes open. The room is dim, and he can see the glow of her pale head beside his hip, face buried in soft arms. Harvey dozes near the doorway.

"S-" His mouth is full of cotton, his throat crawling with maggots and oozing with disuse- "S'bna-" No response from the girl. "Sabrina- Sabrina-" The panic begins to settle and to steep, welling up his throat and to his head, his eyes; they water, "Sabrina!" 

And then the softest snore sighs from her lips and he feels relief wash over him in dashing waves. He watches her shift in her sleep, a mumble slipping out, something that sounds startlingly like his own name, and when he glances up, Harvey is there. 

Nick’s mouth works, dry, and then: “Hey, Farm Boy.”

“Hey.” It’s soft: volume, tone, the whole shebang, like Harvey is wary or fond or tired, his shoulders sloped and his mouth parted the slightest bit, small, soft tongue slipping out between chapped lips, almost cat-like. He swallows, and Nick could trace the line of his bobbing throat if he wanted.

Nick says nothing, only regards the boy, who shifts nervously foot to foot, eyes darting down towards the old cement flooring of the basement. Hilda says something loudly upstairs. 

“I didn’t think you were going to make it.” Harvey says after a while, hesitant.

“Out of Hell? Me neither.”

“No, that’s not what I meant- but yeah, that too. I meant… tonight. You looked… well, you looked like shit.”

Nick rolls his eyes. “Gee, thanks.”

“No- I mean, you usually look so cool and you were like- passed out, and… yeah.” Another gulp, a hand sliding across the back of his neck uneasily. 

“You think I’m cool, Farm Boy?” Harvey’s always been an open book to Nick, since the first time he’d seen him, Sabrina hanging on the mortal’s arm and laughing into his ear. Nick had been  _ jealous _ , for the first time in his life-- he’d always gotten everything he wanted, if he tried hard enough-- and he wasn’t sure of who. Sabrina was perfect, and Harvey was something else.

In the time since then, he’d seen it-- seen the way Harvey’s eyes lingered thoughtfully on him, the way he blinked when Nick smiled, flushing slightly; it was the same way he acted around Sabrina. At first, he thought it was hatred, but no: it was something better, sweeter. 

And then, to Nick’s surprise, Harvey laughs, a real laugh, soft and unhindered, careful not to wake Sabrina. He flops onto the other side of Nick’s metal slab of a bed, so he finds himself bracketed by the two, one asleep, the other laughing softly with light in his eyes. He grins at Harvey. 

“That a no, then?” He ventures, not wanting to tease the other boy too far that he stops laughing and the light goes out. But it’s just so  _ easy. _ One of Harvey’s hands has fallen onto the metal beside his hip, knuckles red and calloused from time in the mines, and Nick wants to smooth the pad of his thumb across them the way Sabrina does to his own hands.

“‘Course you are, man.” It sounds so honest, so easy, and Nick can feel a slight flush at the compliment, smile growing wider. 

“You’re alright yourself, Harvey.” Nick tries, knuckles brushing the other boy’s. Harvey yanks it back as if burned, the light gone from his eyes, and Nick wants to cry. Sitting up straighter, the mortal blinks harshly down at him, the faint light from the hallway illuminating him from behind, casting a dark shadow over Nick. 

“Why would you say that?” It’s sharp, stabbing, cutting, slitting Nick’s throat. 

“Why not? You’re pretty cool for a mortal.”

“We’re… not supposed to get along.”

A pause, in which Nick almost chokes on his tongue, sitting up the slightest bit. His head spins, and he flops back into the cheap pillow beneath his head. There’s bile rising in his throat, and he forces it down, narrowing his gaze on Harvey who watches in silence. 

“Why not?” Nick asks again, and Harvey glares. Says nothing. Opens his mouth, closes it. Swallows, a stupid, showy affair. Coughs, “Because... Sabrina.”

A furrow in his brow, Nick tries to sit up again, and his eyes burn as he struggles upright. One of Harvey’s hands, surprisingly gentle, comes to his elbow, steadying and strong. Nick looks up at him, and finds he’s surprisingly close like this, leaning down to reach him, and he smells like dirt and boy. 

“What d’you mean, Farm Boy? What about her?” Nick asks, softly, and he wants to punch himself for the hitch in his voice, eyes imploring-- Harvey goes to pull back, but Nick’s hand jolts up to cover Harvey’s on his arm. “Did she say something?” Harvey shakes his head. “So you just don’t want to like me, Farm Boy?” 

“I  _ don’t _ like you,” It comes out defensive, and there’s a quiver and a jerk in his voice. Nick knows he’s lying.

Sabrina shifts in her sleep, and Nick can see Harvey’s eyes soften, this close up, when he glances over at her. Eyes still on the mortal, Nick’s other hand comes up to rest on the base of her skull, stroke gently through her hair. Harvey’s gaze snaps back to him, and the softness remains. They’re so close, Nick can feel Harvey’s breath feathering against his lip and see the barest of freckles on the edges of his nose. 

“Harvey,” He breathes, and then Harvey’s lashes flutter close, laying flat against his cheeks. Nick’s hand slips from Harvey’s crawls up his arm to his jaw, ever so gently, so as not to scare him away. And then Harvey is letting Nick kiss him, and it’s just the barest brush of lips but it’s  _ everything _ , especially with Sabrina right here beside him, snoring faintly underneath the rush of Nick’s blood in his ears and the thrumming bass of his heart. 

For a second, the purest, briefest of reposes, NIck can imagine he has this, this boy and this girl and the both of them together, with him, but then Harvey jolts back, as if shocked or spelled, and reluctantly Nick’s eyes open-- he didn’t know he had closed them-- and Harvey is standing, backing away as if Nick had bit him. Which, of course, he’d like to, but hadn’t. Not yet, at least. 

“We ... we can’t do that.” He’s saying, and Nick kind of finds it cute how he’s flushed and his voice trembles, but that’s neither here nor there. Harvey isn’t looking at him, gaze roving wildly around the dull room, hands fisted into balls by his side, shirt hem trapped between them. 

“And why’s that?” Nick asks, but if he knows anything about mortals, he knows this isn’t exactly their custom. Maybe if he hears Harvey say why it can’t be true, he’ll believe it-- really, truly, believe it. 

“B-” Harvey falters, swallows, “Because you’re with Sabrina, and you love Sabrina, and so we can’t… do that.”

NIck opens his mouth to say something back, but Harvey’s already out the door. 

  
  



	5. Why Can't I Make You See?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just Let Me Cry- lesley gore

_ Hide every lovely flower from my sight _

_ Don't let that dreamy moon come out, oh, tonight _

_ He said goodbye- _

_ Just let me cry _

Harvey would like to think knows this house fairly well by now, yet still he manages to get lost in it, stumbling through twisting hallways and past old oak doors. He can hear Nick calling his name softly as he goes, careful not to wake Sabrina-- he’s always so careful with her. 

It would be a lie if Harvey were to tell himself that he didn’t think about this beforehand, that he wasn’t hoping for it, or asking for it. It’d be a lie to say he was surprised. Nick has never been one for subtlety, in the short time Harvey’s known him. 

Gasping, tears beginning to form in his eyes, he gropes his way past closed doors. He doesn’t remember where the stairs are, bumbling around the basement. Blindly, vision blurred, he grasps at a door handle shoving it open one-shouldered; it’s a closet full of embalming tools. The knives and razors and other incriminating things gleam at him, and he slams the door shut, moving on. Nick is still behind him, stumbling through the hall. 

“Harvey, wait-”

And then he sees the stairs, to his right, and he’s scrambling up them as fast as he can, like a man hunted, tumbling through the door. His head hits the tile of the terrarium with a thud. A scream echoes below him; the door slams shut. 

“Dear me,” Hilda appears, upside down and distorted as his head spins, in Harvey’s vision, “Are you alright?”

He nods.

“What were you in such a hurry for, love?” 

Harvey has always liked Hilda Spellman. She was warm and inviting, everything her sister wasn’t. He could just picture Sabrina growing up here, under the careful eyes of Zelda and the caring eyes of Hilda. One night, after homecoming on the back of Harvey’s truck, gazing at the stars, Sabrina had told him that she was almost glad her parents had passed, because she wouldn’t have gotten the chance to grow up with her aunts otherwise. 

“I… Nick is awake.” Is all he tells her now, as she reaches out a hand to pull him up. 

“And why’s that got you running for the hills, exactly?” She asks innocently, but there’s something knowing in her eyes as she appraises him. Pushing him towards a small glass table, she murmurs a summoning spell. A small teapot surfaces from within the glass, along with two dainty teacups. 

Harvey falls into one of the wrought iron chairs, “It… It’s nothing, really.” But he’s still out of breath, even as he says it. Why did he have to  _ run? _ He wasn’t chicken shit, he wasn’t. 

“Sounds like nothing.” She agrees softly, smiling at him. “Just nothing enough that you might need a hug, perhaps? To compensate for all that nothingness?”

Harvey loved Hilda Spellman. 

\-----

He sleeps in one of the haunted guest rooms for the remainder of the night, listening to the old house creak and filtering in and out of shallow dreams. At one point, he’d swear there’s a figure at the foot of his bed when he wakes, momentarily surfacing from the depths of a shaken slumber, staring down at him. The figure is handsome--devilishly so-- and drawn, with eyes of fire and skin of bone. Flicking in the light of a hall candle, his-- her?-- shadow is horned and beast-like. 

But then Harvey falls back into the pillows and the figure is long gone, leaving only a hollow feeling in its wake. 

\-----

He’s never had breakfast with the Spellmans, but boy is it an experience. Especially with the elephant in the room-- or rather, the boy in the basement. NIck is still asleep when Harvey appears in the Spellmans’ enormous kitchen, still in his jeans and t-shirt from the day before. He has no idea where his coat got off to. 

Nick’s absence has him worried, and he hates himself for it. Is he alright? Is he mad Harvey ran away? Unable to decide whether he’s relieved or not that Nick hasn’t made it to the table yet, Harvey steps into the kitchen. 

“Morning, Harvey.” Hilda greets him warmly from the stove, where she stirs a bubbling pot of something that smells like roses and cinnamon. 

“Morning, Ms. Spellman.” 

“Oh, none of that ‘Ms. Spellman’ business here, dearie. We’re practically family. Call me Hilda.” 

Before Harvey could open his mouth, a cool voice was cutting in behind him: “You can call  _ me _ Ms. Spellman.” Zelda Spellman is holding a cigarette in an old-fashion silver holder, eying him carefully. “Sleep well?”

Harvey nods. “Thank you for letting me stay here.”

“It’s nothing,” She waves a manicured hand, dispelling smoke, “As my sister said, you’re practically family. I’m just wondering,” She takes a puff, “Why you care so much what happens to Nicholas.”

Tensing, Harvey feels a pricking in the pit of his stomach and down his spine. Why  _ does  _ he care about Nick? Isn’t he supposed to hate nick, his ex-girlfriend’s new boyfriend? 

“Zelda, let the poor boy be. He’s probably starving, don’t ask hard questions before breakfast.” Hilda is at his side, a gentle hand at his elbow. “D’you want something to eat, dear?”

“I… yes please. Smells delicious.” he finds a seat at the table, as far from Zelda as possible. She turns back to her paper; it’s in Mandarin, fluid characters sprawling down the page in black ink. 

“Rose and curry porridge. Family recipe.” She’s bringing the pot from the stove, and Harvey could have sworn that bowl wasn’t there a minute ago, “Say when.”

“When-” Hilda doesn’t stop, dropping another dollap into the bowl. 

“For good measure. Not enough flesh on those bones.” And with a wink, she’s whirling back towards the counter. 

The table is quiet; the only sound is the ruffle of Zelda’s paper and the clatter of Harvey’s spoon on the bowl. The porridge is delicious, and he makes sure to tell Hilda so before she ducks out to find her niece. 

A crow screams outside the window. 

“Why do you care about the boy, Harvey?”

Zelda is looking up at him over gold reading glasses, eyes narrowed. She looks older than he’s ever seen her in the bright morning sun, the bags under her eyes heavy like lead, her mouth a drawn scratch to her skin. 

“Certainly, it’s not because you think he’s competition, is it?” Setting the paper down, she goes on, “You know Sabrina loves him… like she loved you.” 

_ Loved _ . 

“I never really got that, the infatuation there, but Sabrina is a mature young woman, she can make these decisions herself.” She takes a long drag from her cigarette in silence, Harvey isn’t sure if she’s done speaking. He also isn’t sure whether she’s talking about him or Nick. He doesn’t ask. 

“...Nick is a friend.” He tells her at last, when it’s clear she’s finished, opting to regard him in silence. She blinks. 

“Do you smoke?” 

“Do I… No, ma’am.” 

“Take this.” There’s a pack next to her coffee mug, and she shakes a thin stick from the box, bringing it tip to tip with her own smoke. It lights, and she hands it to him wordlessly. 

“I don’t know what to do with this.” It feels heavy between his fingers. 

“Put it in your mouth. Not like that. Better. Breath in through your lips-” He sucks in a deep breath, choking on the smoke, “-Not that much. Less. Less. Better. Now hold it,” He feels like a frog, puffed up, “And breathe out. There.”

It’s disgusting, and reminds him too much of the mine. His head spins a little, ashes dropping into his porridge. A cold hand is at his wrist, pulling the cigarette down, away from his face. 

“Don’t hurt Sabrina.” Zelda sits back in her chair, still holding his wrist firmly. He feels himself pulled forward across the table. 

“I won’t-” 

“Good.” It feels like the air between them is on fire, he can feel it in his stomach and up his spine. But then Sabrina is flouncing into the room in a dress he’s never seen before, eyes twinkling and Hilda in tow. Nick is nowhere to be seen.

“I have a sermon to get to.”

  
  



	6. You Claw, You Fight, You Lose

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> flesh without blood-- grimes

_ Baby, believe me. _

_ And you had every chance, you destroy everything that you know _

_ Uncontrollable _

_ If you don’t need me _

_ Just let me go _

When she’d woke up, head pillowed against the embalming slab, Nick hadn’t been there. Neither had Harvey. 

She’d been having the most curious dream. She’d been bowed in the woods, a warm hand at her nape. In her dream, it was her father, but when she looked up it was  _ him. _ Horns and fur and blood. Nick was at her left, Harvey at her right, hands on both sides of her, sliding down her skin in hot trails. She was naked, bare, in pain and agony and pleasure. The hand at her nape dug deep, a nail at the base of her skull, pulling on her spine; Harvey’s mouth is on her cheek and Nick’s on her breast. 

And then a slam, a shout, and she woke up, and neither were there.

Blinking in the dim lights of the embalming room, something glared red across the table at her. Fur and horns and blood. 

She screamed. 

At her side in an instant, barrelling through the door on limping legs, hands at her cheeks, Nick is beside her, head whipping around like a wild dog. 

“Sabrina, what’s wrong?”

“Nick he-” 

But the embalming room is empty, the two of them huddled beside a pale slab. The fluorescents above them swing with a creak and a moan. His hands are at her waist, holding her to him, and she can feel his breathing against her side, heavy. 

“Who? Harvey?” Dipped towards her, his breath is hot on her cheek. 

“What? No, not Harvey… where is he?”

“He went to bed,” He’s not looking at her. “Why were you screaming?”

“Doesn’t matter.” It feels stupid, now. But… “How did you get out? Where is the Dark Lord now?”

“Lilith said she put him in Judas. I don’t know what that means, but,” He shrugs, and Sabrina missed him so much, “If I’m out of that hellhole, then it’s a win.” 

She snorts, grinning at him. “I missed you, NIck.” 

“I missed you too…” He looks like he’s going to kiss her. She drops her head onto his shoulder instead, listening to the steady beat of his heart. It’s unreal, him being here. She’d just felt like she was coping with his absence, and now he was in her basement. She should kiss him. She doesn’t. 

“Take me to bed?” She asks instead, and feels the rumble of his laugh against her temple. “Not like that, you sleaze.” 

“Like what? I didn’t say anything.”

Strong hands find the backs of her knees and he’s standing, swaying slightly. 

“Put me down.” He does. “You need to rest. No tenuous activity.” 

He raises an eyebrow at her, and she can’t help the giggle that rises up her throat. “Again, not like that, you perv. C’mon. Let’s get you to a bedroom.”

“Preferably yours,” He mutters, following her down the hall. 

Something’s wrong with him. He’s Nick, but… muted, pensive. Sabria takes him to an empty room, and he kisses her forehead at the door before disappearing inside. It’s well past the witching hour, now, but she finds herself at Ambrose’s door anyway. 

He sent her a postcard, last week. From Italy. They haven’t found Father Blackwood yet, he said, but Florence was beautiful anyway. He hadn;t written to their aunts, and asked her not to tell. 

Aunt Hilda had insisted no one touch his room. She and Zelda were acting like he’d died, not gone on vacation. A witch hunt  _ could _ count as vacation for him, Sabrina mused as she sat on his bed. She remembered coming here, years ago, and telling him she had a  _ crush _ on a  _ boy _ . He’d leaned in, whispering conspiratorially, telling her what to do, how to dress, how to act. 

And then she thought of Harvey, a stuttering mess leaning against the lockers, flowers in-hand as eh asked her to homecoming. She remembered staying up late that night in the bed of his truck, watching the stars and talking about everything but the thing she wanted to say most. They’d ditched the dance after five minutes, and Roz and Theo with it. 

She remembered her first kiss, and Harvey’s chapped lips and cold skin. 

She smooths a hand over the bedsheets, listening to the quiet of the house. And in the quiet, she can feel her heart beating, and hear breathing. Not hers. 

Across the crowded and cluttered room, red glows back at her. 

She’s out the door in an instant. 

\-----

When she checks each bedroom, she finds Harvey sprawled on top of a down comforter, shifting in his sleep. For a moment, it looks almost like he’s watching her, and there’s something like fear painted in moonlight across his face, but she slips out of the room, the door closing softly behind her. 

\-----

Nick isn’t asleep. He’s pacing, worrying at his lip. Sabrina says nothing, watching wordlessly and listlessly from the hall. 

He doesn’t even know she’s there.

\-----

The sun always wakes with Sabrina. When Hilda comes looking for her at nine, she’s already dressed for the sermon. Salem is at her feet, hissing and clawing at her socks. 

“What is wrong with you today?” A feline nail sinks into her ankle, drawing blood and she jolts back. The cat hisses louder, skittering away. 

Muttering to herself, she spells the pinprick of red away; the cotton returns pure white. 

In the mirror, she catches her own eye. With the rising sun framing her from behind, she can’t help but see her mother in her features. She blinks and sees Edward Spellman written across her face in the nose and chin. Her eyes are her mother’s. And the rest of her-- that belongs to someone else.

The thought isn’t hers. She shakes it away. 

A rap at the door. “Dear, are you ready for breakfast? I’m coming in.” 

Hilda is in her best dress, pressed and lilac-scented. “Don’t you look lovely. New dress?” 

“A gift from Nick, a couple months ago. I didn’t take it out of the box after... “ She swallows. ‘All that. Auntie, can I ask you something?”

“Always.” 

Taking her aunt’s arm, Sabrina follows her into the hallway. “Do you think NIck is going to be the same?”

“What do you mean, dear? He’s still Nick, even after everything.” 

“I know that, it’s just… you don’t think it’d change him? Having so much evil inside him, even if it wasn’t his own?”

Hilda seems vexed, leading them down the last set of stairs. “I guess it’s possible. We don’t have much of a precedent for this. I s’pose you could think of it like a possession. The poor souls who make it out are never quite the same…”

“Jesse Putnam.” Sabrina finds herself saying. Hilda squeezes her hand. 

“But we don’t know that for sure. Come on, dearie. Breakfast always makes you feel better. I made your favorite.”

“Cardamom pancakes?”

Hilda’s face falls. “Er… no. But your second favorite.”

And so Sabrina finds herself smiling as she enters the kitchen, expecting sage milkshakes and eggs. But the heady smell of cinnamon hits her instead. Not her favorite, but always good. 

More off-putting is Harvey’s uncomfortable presence at the table. Zelda is glaring daggers at him, and he looks like he’s about to bolt.

“Uh… good morning?” She tries, and it’s like she snapped a rope between the two. Zelda slams her paper down, cigarette ash flying. 

“I have a sermon to get to. I’ll see you two in three hours. Don’t be late.” And with a pointed glare at her sister, she’s gone. Sabrina falls into her chair across from Harvey, Hilda bustling around getting her a bowl of porridge. 

“Hey.” She cant help how soft it comes out. Harvey looks like a deer in the headlights, and he laughs a little. “You okay? Aunt Z didn’t try to curse you again, did she?”

“No she didn’t- wait, again?” 

“You remember last year, when you kept finding all those frogs in your bathroom?”

Harvet blanches. “I thought we just had a plumbing problem!”

“A plumbing problem? What kind of plumbing problem fills your bathtub with frogs?”

“I…. I’m not a plumber! How should I know? I specialize in cartoons and mines!”

Hilda sets the porridge beside her and slips out of the room.

“Excuses, excuses, Harvey. So,” She digs a spoon into her food. “What do you think of Aunt Hilda’s rose porridge? Family recipe.” 

“So she says. It’s too sweet for me.” 

Sabrina rolls her eyes. “Everythings too sweet for you, Harvey. You say _candy_ is too sweet for you.”

“It’s all sugar!”

“That’s the  _ point _ .”

She’s laughing, and it feels like a weight is lifted off her shoulders. Like last night was all a bad dream, like Nick is safe at the Academy, and she can laugh here with Harvey in the sunlight of her kitchen table. 

But then the feeling turns sour: Nick is asleep upstairs, and she’s eating breakfast with her ex-boyfriend in a fit of giggles. 

Harvey is saying something. “-Roz agrees with me! She doesn’t like candy all that much either!”

And it’s like a cold hand clamps around her heart.  _ Roz. _ That’s right. Not only is Sabrina here with her ex-boyfriend, but said ex-boyfriend is also her best friend’s  _ new _ boyfriend. 

“...Sabrina? You okay? You look a little pale.” 

“I… have to get ready for the sermon. I’ll see you later, okay Harvey?”

And she runs. 

  
  



	7. In Time

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> in time-- FKA Twigs

_ In time, _

_ Your hands on my body will resonate thru me like they did before and then _

_ I will be better _

_ And we will be stronger _

Nick doesn’t sleep. Lying awake in a cold bed in a cold room, he waits for sleep to take him. But it doesn’t come, and he abandons the covers in favor of pacing the room silently. The floorboards creak beneath his bare feet and the curtains flutter in a phantom wind, and Nick’s mind goes blessedly blank. 

There’s a shuffling outside the door, but when he looks up there’s no one in the hall. 

When the sun’s begun to climb the trees lining the Spellman property, seeping liquidly into the room through dusty windows and thin veils, Nick finds himself flat on the floor, staring up at the eaves. Sabrina has brought him to the highest room in the house besides Ambrose’s encampment in the basement, and he can hear the crows clawing desperately at the wood above him, to take hold or get in he’s not sure. 

At last, he stands. He brushes the dust and dirt from his hair. He needs to shower-- the mines were disgusting, and Hell was worse-- and change his clothes. The closet holds an ancient-looking pair of sweatpants and tshirt, and he tucks them under one arm, drifting through the hall towards the nearest bathroom. 

The water is scalding when he gets in, and goes cold when he looks at the knob wrong. When NIck looks at his feet, the water runs murky brown around him. 

Below him, he can hear breakfast happening. He wants to sleep; everything is wrong and his head is stuffed with cotton. There’s as stamping inside his ribs that could be his heartbeat.

When he has dressed, the tshirt hanging baggily off his shoulders, he finds the stairs, leaving his dirty clothes in the bathtub. 

Nick walks by the kitchen, hearing Sabrina’s laugh. 

He finds the back door, slipping out. There’s birdsong on the wind, and his head feels infinitely better in the fresh air. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he sees Sabrina playing here as a child, drowned among high weeds and billowing sheets, Hilda putting the laundry out to dry while the girl makes up games and tricks. And he can imagine, slowly, the girl growing up, ditching toy trucks and dolls for books and a wand; he can imagine her at a school dance, laughing with those friends of hers. 

And then Nick imagines, his feet carrying him across the drying lawn towards the cemetery, Sabrina kissing a boy. Not Nick. A different boy, with shaggy brown hair and doe eyes. When he passes the first headstone, they begin to dance in his mind, in a dark room with dim lights and a heady smell.

The image in his mind morphs, his heels digging into a fresh grave. Pretty eyes kissing  _ him, _ Nick, dancing with him in an empty hall, and Sabrina sits nearby, smiling softly as she watches. She’s dancing with them, she’s kissing his cheek, and Harvey is holding his hand. 

Nick sits down against a gravestone. His head spins to the beat of a phantom tune while the trio in his mind dances across his skull, their footsteps matching the pounding coming from somewhere beneath his ribcage.

Across the stone path, through the grass and over dying leaves, his feet beat the ground in time, dancing over the dead, turning in their graves under his boots. 

There’s a crack somewhere to his left, and the fog slips from his mind. The dreary grey morning seeps in, watery yellow sun like butter beneath sinking eyelids and drowsy cold pricking his bare arms. His head whips around to see it: a coyote, big and brown and beautiful, stalking the edge of the wood.

Their eyes meet; the beast’s ears flatten against its skull and Nick can taste the fear in his throat. He does not move, his breath halted in his throat and blood rushing in his ears as he waits for it to make a move. A thousand spells rush to the surface, summonings, banishings, nothing that’d help him. This is an enemy of mortal flesh. 

But it only regards him before turning and skulking away, tail whipping behind it. 

Eyes burning as he blinks away lights and the music in his mind, Nick falls to the grass at his feet. It’s wilted and dry, but feels like so many lush feathers between his fingers. He needs sleep, he needs water, he needs to rest. The moss is a lush pillow beneath his head and the sun is a warm and welcoming blanket, wrapping around him as he lays, eyes slipping blessedly closed. Far off, he hears a shout and a howl, but he does not stir. 


	8. Tear Out All Your Tenderness

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> howl--florence and the machine

_ Be careful of the curse that falls on young lovers _

_ Starts so soft and sweet, and turns them to hunters _

_ The fabric of your flesh, pure as a wedding dress _

_ Until I wrap myself inside your arms, I cannot rest- _

Sabrina and her aunts had left an hour ago, leaving Harvey to his own devices. Nick was nowhere to be found.

And so Harvey wound up in the woods behind the mortuary, hands in pockets and jacket zipped tight against the cold. The soft ground gave beneath his boots as he delved deeper into the trees than he’d been before. He never really had cause to explore the woods in this part of town, only following the quick and marked path to the Spellman’s mansion after school when the weather was ripe. 

The morning stretches out in all directions, the cemetary to his back and woods ahead. A swallow keens above him, the dirt crawling beneath him, and he can see clearer than he has in months. The sky is grey and the light is cold. Behind a cloud the sun shudders and the moon smiles serenely in wan.

Harvey tries not to think about Nick. He thinks of Sabrina, a smile across the breakfast table like honey. Pale hair, pink lips, delicate fingers and sloping figure. No dark eyes, no strong arms, no chapped skin and calluses. In his mind, they are opposites, always juxtaposing in one another’s arms, yet together something whole nad outside what Harvey can imagine-- spells and kisses and blood. 

He wonders if maybe they could exercise this feeling from him, if he’s being haunted or possessed. Because Sabrina isn’t Harvey’s; Nick is  _ hers. _

If he thinks about it, which he tries not to, meandering through the woods, long lost the path may be, he can imagine it: them, together. Sheets and panted breaths and it’s all so rough, so carnal. Harvey never did manage to drag that out of her, too careful and self-conscious as they were. He wonders, briefly, a mere fleeting thought: what would Nick drag out of  _ him _ ? Something carnal as well? Something soft and vulnerable, something quiet, or a scream against his chest? He feels guilty to admit he’s thought it over quite a few times, and even worse to admit he’s thought of them all. Of the three of them, in the woods or the bed or, fuck, even against the wall. Nick’s hot breath and Sabrina’s dancing fingers, feeling from his core and across his thighs and neck. 

It’s ludicrous, and wrong, so wrong, and he hates that it only makes him want it more. Want  _ them _ more.

And then he stumbles, ankle twisting horribly and a crack as he crashes to the ground, heaving through the brambles. Rolling, he’s thrown across the ground, scratched at and dug through, collapsing in a heap: a bare clearing. 

No: not bare. A flat stone, perfectly shaped in the center of the clearing, red splashes across it. He knows this place, that bench, this grass.  _ This _ is where it happened: where Sabrina was born and reborn again. 

The air seems to shift around him, wind whipping across dried branches like a scream. The moon has slipped quietly way, the sun hidden, and the clouds watch impassively as he sits, dirty and sweating, bleeding from a cut above his right eye, jeans torn, on the bench. A book once lay where he sits now. Her blood still lays here.

Silence, and the splitting of wood: something approaches.

When he looks up, it’s as if the world halts, stuttering into slow motion, frame by aching frame.

Its fur is the color of clay, eyes narrowed and teeth bared. A wolf? Harvey wonders absently, but no. Too small. A coyote, then. 

His father once shot one, in their yard when Harvey was nine. He’d been sitting on the porch,  _ Batman _ spread across his lap, and hadn’t noticed it sidle towards him across the lawn. When he saw it, huge to him in his memories, he didn’t scream. He only watched it, tilting his head. It watched him back, silently toeing its way forward. For a moment, he thought he could touch it, smooth a hand across its skull and through thick fur, like the dog he’s always wanted, but is father had come bounding out of the house, shotgun in hand, and Harvey watched its body fall limp, just shy of the front steps. He’d screamed, then. 

He does not scream now, even as it rears its head back in a snarl, advancing on him, stalking towards his back. He turns, eyes glued to sharp teeth and matted hair. The eyes are yellow. Are they supposed to be yellow? It growls, and his hands tighten to fists beside his hips on the stone. Worst comes to worst…. He spots a heavy stone a few feet away.

The coyote watches as he stands, sinking lower on its haunches. In reciprocation, Harvey rises to his feet, trying his best to impose over the creature. The wind shouts a warning.

A shuffle, more of a dance, as Harvey sidles along the edge of the clearing towards the stone. The coyote is advancing, prowling in towards him, until it's a mere two feet away, eyes narrowed threateningly. He swallows; the beast huffs. He can feel the warmth of its rancid breath across his claves, seeping through the layers of his jeans and skin, to his bones. Harvey smells blood and rot. The thing growls again, low and dangerous.

Harvey draws a breath. He's not chicken shit.

It happens quickly: he darts down, reaching desperately for the stone. The coyote pouncies, as Harvey's fingers scramble across the dirt, grasping at nothing. 

Claws in his shoulder. Gusts of gory air across his face, and he wants to gag, to retch. Instead he shoves a hand in the monster's face, pushing it aside as it goes for his throat; teeth scrape his hand, a phantom of the bite, and he cries out. The paws against his sternum flex and dig in. 

Fingers, still scrabbling against the dirt, close around the stone. It's the size of his palm, dense and heavy. Going in for another blow, teeth bared and shaking his other hand off, the coyote snarls, and Harvey can feel it in his stomach amd between his ribs, beneath the creature. It's heavy, crushing in on his lungs and he heaves a gasp, thrashing against it again, trying to throw it off. The incisors miss by a mere inch, dragging wetly against his jaw like a knife.

Raising the stone, arm shaking with effort and fear, he catches sight of its eyes: wild and angry and almost pained. Hesitation and anticipation shudder through Harvey.

The beast rears its head again, recoiling for a blow, and Harvey squeezes his eyes and swings. There's a disgusting thud, a crack and the weigh slumps from his chest. 

He's not chicken shit; he’s shaking and bleeding and sweating in the dirt, shoving at the dead animal beside him as he sits up. His head spins.

It's not a bloody affair, the body. Although its skull is smashed, nothing seeps from it, getting caught up in matted fur and glassy eyes. 

Harvey takes one glimpse of the body, in a deep sleep, and heaves bile into the dirt beside him. Hilda's porridge paints the grass grey and rancid.

On shaking legs he stands, ghosting hands across his body. Intact. His fingers come off wet from his shoulder and jaw on the right side, and he wipes it on soiled denim. 

Casting around the clearing, Harvey takes his coat off. The frigid air cools his fevered skin. And then, dipping down slowly, he lays the coat across the body. He doesn't know any prayers for the dead.

He wonders if Sabrina could bring it back. Could drag it to the dirt on their cemetery, could give it a proper burial. He wonders if she'd burn it's flesh in a ritual, wonders if her aunts would serve it for dinner.

This is her fault. This is Sabrina's fault: she got him involved in all this. This is her woods, her clearing, that is her blood. 

Clenched fists and shuddering breaths, Harvey leaves the clearing. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ok that's it.  
> DEFINITELY not my best writing, but i was trying to get rid of writers block and just get something down lmao  
> let me know if u want more uwu

**Author's Note:**

> want to make friends? [join the discord!](https://discord.gg/3AehqA)  
> [find me on tumblr](https://angryjane.tumblr.com)


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